Student Loan Crisis Threatens a Generation’s American Dream
Forget the picket fence. Rising tuitions and official policy fueled a trillion-dollar debt crisis. Could congressional action help?
By Matt Krupnick
With $60,000 in student debt, Cameron Vigil does not expect to marry or start a family anytime soon, or even to afford more basic living expenses.
“It’s definitely been holding me off on buying a car or getting a house,” said Vigil, 21, a Denver resident working on her master’s degree at Regis University. She expects her debt to balloon to $100,000 by the time she finishes her doctorate. “I kind of know I have to hold off on that.”
With a staggering $1.5tn in outstanding student loans, the United States faces a crisis that has rippled throughout the economy — and is getting worse. Nearly two-thirds of 2017 college graduates need to pay back student loans, according to the California-based Institute for College Access and Success, and about 9 million have defaulted.
As the most recent recession led universities to raise prices and sometimes-unsavory, for-profit colleges to take advantage of students, debt mounted at unprecedented rates. Experts worry it will be catastrophic for the economy as a generation…
